About

The present project has been founded by a group of experts. Those are people who have been working for many years on countering cultic psychological abuse, both in Russia and in EU countries.

Aims of the project are: helping victims of cultic activities, and prevention of abusive methods of their psychological influence on a person.

Specific tasks of the project are:

- psychological, legal and informational assistance to the people whose relatives get involved in cults, to help the latter in returning to fuller life;

- psychological assistance to former members of cults in overcoming the traumatic consequences of the abuse they survived;

- informing the public on the dangers presented by cults, by educational events and media appeareances;

- training of specialists who might encounter the issue of cults in their professional activity;

- expert evaluation of groups, which supposedly have cultic features, on whether they present social and psychological risks for persons and society.

Pre-history of the project. The work has begun in Latvia, more than twenty years ago. A group of like-minded people had been among the first to challenge the cults in public in the country. Later, this public initiative had grown into a professional organisation – Latvian Committee for Combating the Totalitarian Sects. Its history can be consulted in more detail here. Over the years of its activity, a wide experience in helping cult victims has been accrued.

Starting from 2011, residents of Russia began to turn to us, too. Later, Committee staff has provided consultations and expertise to many people, and also has conducted several scientific studies. Our specialists have been repeatedly invited as expertsto Russian television.In 2017, due to the growing number of requests, we’ve decided to make our work in Russia permanent instead of case-by-case approach.